Special Criminal Investigation (Sega Master System) review "Pew Pew in 60 Seconds"

The daughter of an influential politician has gone missing, and many suspect it was done by none other than... the syndicate! You, being one of the police department's best officers, decide the best course of action is to track down potential leads and rough them up for info. This won't be no classic off-the-record "interrogation," either; with partner in tow, you'll be burning rubber through long winding roads in a red Nissan Fairlady Z, chasing after scum in an attempt to pull them over.

If this sounds faintly familiar, it's because Special Criminal Investigation, despite having a vastly different name, is the direct follow-up to Chase H.Q., a "racer" where the objective is to rush toward specific cars and subdue them within a time limit. Gameplay-wise, this is structured into two segments, each having their own separate time limit that you must... out run. The first segment of a stage plays out like a traditional race where you must reach a "check point," the criminal's vehicle in this case, indicated by a distance meter. Once there, the second segment begins and you must bump into the criminal several times until either their health is depleted or time runs out.

Straightforward yet sound concept, right? SCI continues with this design, but makes a few changes and modifications to prevent it from being an exact replica of its predecessor. The most drastic of these come in the form of attacking a suspect's vehicle; while ramming is still an option, you now have the ability to have your partner pop out the top of the car and fire his gun. More surprising is the fact that you have unlimited shots. Furthermore, in the middle of every stage, a helicopter will fly in to drop a rocket launcher power-up with limited ammo. However, with these new additions also comes the removal of a specific Chase H.Q. feature: the shop system, meaning there's less importance on strengthening your car.

With the exclusion of certain aspects and prioritizing others, SCI is putting emphasis on pure action more than anything else. Seems like a sensible direction for a game made for arcades... but how does that translate to a home port? SCI, despite its concept, is a surprisingly shallow experience; that's okay in specific environments. The reason this works in an arcade setting is because the game plays more like an attraction piece. While griping a physical steering wheel, you'll guide your vehicle through crisp, colorful, rapidly scaling environments at top speeds, whether it be near steep cliffs, over shallow streams, and through dark caves. All this while you're weaving around traffic, sometimes incoming, as you fire weapons. The adrenaline-based design, if you remove the actual quality of the game for a minute, is what makes it work in short bursts.

The problem with porting arcade games to consoles during the 1980s and early 1990s, aside from the fact that it's mostly done on inferior hardware, is that the "experience" usually won't convert well in a home setting. Unfortunately, that's basically what occurred with this conversion. Bless its heart, the Sega Master System port tries within the hardware's limitations, but it's just not the same sensation when you're staring at compact 8-bit vehicles on what looks like flat, apocalyptic landscapes. The devs tried their darnedest to replicate the river stage and its splashing waves, though.



With the overall experience being halved, it's instances like this where gameplay needed to come out on top... and it doesn't. The biggest downfall easily goes to your ability to fire an endless amount of projectiles in rapid succession; stopping criminals is a complete joke now. The devs "counter" this by making the lead up to each criminal standoff cheaper a tad trickier with each subsequent stage. Such examples include having a fake boss fight before the actual one, thus forcing you to hastily defeat both before time runs out, or making you complete the final stage in one go, with failure pushing you to the title screen. So yeah, cheap tricks.

The port of Chase H.Q. wasn't exactly a masterpiece itself but, from a gameplay perspective, it still manages to outperform this sequel, even if by a little bit. The aforementioned shop menu, for instance, is actually something new added to the SMS version. Seemingly aware that the port was going to be a quick endeavor, the devs basically made the players complete three loops, on limited continues, to beat the game against an escalating difficulty curve. SCI has neither, with the latter desperately being needed. It may not have made the game so much better, but at least it would have added a "survival mode" essence as a challenge. Special Criminal Investigation may be a fun time waster at the arcades, but as a conversion to Sega's 8-bit system, it doesn't amount to much.

Community review by dementedhut (August 07, 2023) One of the many spin-offs and sequels of OutRun. There's... so many.